That being said, I think he is overestimating the market that would pay for this. This seems like it could attract at least a small community as an open source project, however. Unfortunately effort in development is not always rewarded with monetary gain.
Perhaps he should license it as GPL3 and offer commercial licenses? He may find some customers in software houses that are still selling Win16 software.
This seems ... insane. Good insane, learn-me-a-lot in-the-weeds insane but insane nonetheless
In the "why?" Section he mentions how a lot of programs don't run due to the quirks of the Windows API, and he is twiddling things to fix them.
Raymond Chen in "the old new thing" (#) documents his job at Microsoft which was to basically ensure windows handled crappy API calls that third party secs would make and any upgrades or alterations would break. They explicitly added code to windows like "if running adobe XXX then make our API call YYY perform differently and not return a Null"
This was a huge Microsoft department working over many years.
You flat out cannot emulate the Windows API. You just can't.
And all to run games that people today will find amusing for less time than it takes a Venti latte to get cold.
I was a Mac user and didn't play PC games until the Win32 era, but were there very many games for Win16?
I thought that targeting DOS was still common well into the Win95 years.
So, it's a closed source implementation of an API for an old OS/Windowing system atop DOS. Despite the fact that both DOSBox and Wine will run them fine.
And it's aimed at gaming, but most games quit windows and just ran on straight dos, so DOSBox is a better option anyways, especially considering that you're expecting me to pay for this, even though you've already said the compatability isn't great, and Wine and DOSBox are free and both have excellent compatability.
Or, a really interesting project plus a great series of blog posts.
From the FAQ on the author's site:
>Is it open source, can I contribute?
>>Thanks, but no thanks. This project was started as a personal challenge/learning exercise. To have others contribute would defeat the purpose right now.
Which I don't quite agree with (why not just not accept pull requests?), but it's fair enough.
It's specifically aimed at old Windows Games, of which there are many. It's not for old 16bit DOS games like Monkey Island or Elite for example.
So people out there have stacks of old CDs with freeware Windows Games on them (popular on the covers of the Magazines of the time) - this project would nicely re-open the use of these games.
Additionally, if he completes this, then there is a also a LOT of old 16 bit productivity and encyclopedia type software that never made the jump to 32 bit.
Are there still apps for Windows 3 people would use on modern OS'? I'm under the impression you would run a VM if you really must, until/if when you make a transition.
I have one I'd love to use but it's no longer usable even under a VM. It's an audio mixing game called "No World Order" put out by Todd Rundgren back in 1993. It was a Windows 3.1 app, but remarkably worked up until I switched to Windows 7 64-bit. Even then, I could get it to work reasonably well with Windows XP in a VMware VM. Sound and graphics compatibility have never been a big priority for VMware, and the most recent VMware Workstation update seems to have broken the audio to a degree that I can't play the game anymore. I'm going to try VirtualBox at some point, but it's increasingly difficult to get a new Windows XP system up and running.
While you wait for Delphi 1, note that you can already obtain Microsoft's 16-bit Visual C++ compiler and linker at no cost (the same does not apply to 16-bit Visual Basic) and that Open Watcom has been released under an OSI-approved, if weird, license. This tutorial goes into more details: http://www.transmissionzero.co.uk/computing/win16-apps-in-c/.
I've been following the blog posts with great interest but I don't understand the move to turn it into a commercial project. I just don't think there's enough demand, especially for games (how many Win31-specific games were there?)
Where this would be incredibly useful would be for a lot of industrial automation, POS and other commercial software still stuck on Win31. Seems like it would make more sense to release an open source version and then add stuff like raw serial/parallel support as commercial add-ons to cover these cases.
Still, I don't blame Brad for wanting to get some return on his investment, he has put in a huge amount of work and it looks like a very well thought out and executed project.
I'd be fine if it stayed closed source and cost a few bucks to start, and then went open source after the initial revenue stream dried up.
Right now I run a WinXP virtual machine to play SimAnt and SimTower... I know nothing about VMs and was able to get everything installed and working in about 2 hours. So "messing with" virtual machines is not too much time, other than downloading and installing them.
Seeing as the Windows 3.1 crowd would be very niche, they'd most likely have no problem paying a small fee. I just hope it does go open source afterward.
I use Windows 3.1 a lot, mostly to play Solitaire. (Yeah, I could play a newer Solitaire implementation, but I like the nostalgia.) Also, my 3 year old son uses it for Paintbrush and Write - again, I get some nostalgia watching him using Windows 3.1 (although I myself didn't start using Windows until I was 9 or 10).
This is a cool idea, but running the real thing under VirtualBox appeals to me more. (Although it is slightly screwy - full-screen mode DOS boxes corrupt the display - due to using svgaptch to patch svga256.drv to support higher resolutions and colour.)
Seems like a whole lot of hassle for little gain. A lightweight virtual machine should play those games perfectly, no? This guy is porting a huge amount of ancient APIs and their bugs too! Insane.
If you read his development blog-posts, it's mostly a lightweight 80186 emulator, plus forwarding Win16 calls to their Win64 equivalents; he's not re-implementing Windows from scratch.
mmastrac|9 years ago
That being said, I think he is overestimating the market that would pay for this. This seems like it could attract at least a small community as an open source project, however. Unfortunately effort in development is not always rewarded with monetary gain.
Perhaps he should license it as GPL3 and offer commercial licenses? He may find some customers in software houses that are still selling Win16 software.
TazeTSchnitzel|9 years ago
(In fact, it strikes me now that if you're on Windows 10, you could probably run Wine on the WSL.)
rasz_pl|9 years ago
lifeisstillgood|9 years ago
In the "why?" Section he mentions how a lot of programs don't run due to the quirks of the Windows API, and he is twiddling things to fix them.
Raymond Chen in "the old new thing" (#) documents his job at Microsoft which was to basically ensure windows handled crappy API calls that third party secs would make and any upgrades or alterations would break. They explicitly added code to windows like "if running adobe XXX then make our API call YYY perform differently and not return a Null"
This was a huge Microsoft department working over many years.
You flat out cannot emulate the Windows API. You just can't.
And all to run games that people today will find amusing for less time than it takes a Venti latte to get cold.
I wish him luck and happiness :-)
(#) http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html
rasz_pl|9 years ago
hot patching and shims is still a thing in W10
mrpippy|9 years ago
qwertyuiop924|9 years ago
Or am I wrong?
qwertyuiop924|9 years ago
And it's aimed at gaming, but most games quit windows and just ran on straight dos, so DOSBox is a better option anyways, especially considering that you're expecting me to pay for this, even though you've already said the compatability isn't great, and Wine and DOSBox are free and both have excellent compatability.
Sorry, not interested.
voltagex_|9 years ago
From the FAQ on the author's site:
>Is it open source, can I contribute? >>Thanks, but no thanks. This project was started as a personal challenge/learning exercise. To have others contribute would defeat the purpose right now.
Which I don't quite agree with (why not just not accept pull requests?), but it's fair enough.
Jaruzel|9 years ago
So people out there have stacks of old CDs with freeware Windows Games on them (popular on the covers of the Magazines of the time) - this project would nicely re-open the use of these games.
Additionally, if he completes this, then there is a also a LOT of old 16 bit productivity and encyclopedia type software that never made the jump to 32 bit.
Keyframe|9 years ago
g051051|9 years ago
networked|9 years ago
networked|9 years ago
While you wait for Delphi 1, note that you can already obtain Microsoft's 16-bit Visual C++ compiler and linker at no cost (the same does not apply to 16-bit Visual Basic) and that Open Watcom has been released under an OSI-approved, if weird, license. This tutorial goes into more details: http://www.transmissionzero.co.uk/computing/win16-apps-in-c/.
unknown|9 years ago
[deleted]
SmellyGeekBoy|9 years ago
Where this would be incredibly useful would be for a lot of industrial automation, POS and other commercial software still stuck on Win31. Seems like it would make more sense to release an open source version and then add stuff like raw serial/parallel support as commercial add-ons to cover these cases.
Still, I don't blame Brad for wanting to get some return on his investment, he has put in a huge amount of work and it looks like a very well thought out and executed project.
degenerate|9 years ago
Right now I run a WinXP virtual machine to play SimAnt and SimTower... I know nothing about VMs and was able to get everything installed and working in about 2 hours. So "messing with" virtual machines is not too much time, other than downloading and installing them.
Seeing as the Windows 3.1 crowd would be very niche, they'd most likely have no problem paying a small fee. I just hope it does go open source afterward.
kyberias|9 years ago
mmastrac|9 years ago
skissane|9 years ago
This is a cool idea, but running the real thing under VirtualBox appeals to me more. (Although it is slightly screwy - full-screen mode DOS boxes corrupt the display - due to using svgaptch to patch svga256.drv to support higher resolutions and colour.)
cpcallen|9 years ago
frik|9 years ago
TazeTSchnitzel|9 years ago
jjawssd|9 years ago
thristian|9 years ago
bdcravens|9 years ago
vortico|9 years ago
bane|9 years ago
Retr0spectrum|9 years ago
renaudg|9 years ago
That 80s sound is back in force at the moment (under the "synthwave" moniker). Think Stranger Things OST.
Also, this one fits the Windows 3 nostalgia theme nicely (okay, not quite 90s music but still retro)
Keyframe|9 years ago